A commonly used type of electrical terminal comprises a receptacle having a web and curled sidewalls extending from the side edges of the web, as is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,214,361. Terminals of this type are usually secured to the ends of wires by crimping a U-shaped crimp portion of the terminal onto the wire end. It is frequently necessary, for reasons of safety, to provide insulation in surrounding relationship to the terminal and the end portion of the wire, and the provision of such insulation has been accomplished by several different techniques. One common technique is to provide individual plastic housings which are dimensioned to receive terminals so that the terminals, after being crimped onto wires, can be inserted into the housings in a step subsequent to the crimping step.
Under many circumstances it is highly desirable to crimp the terminal onto the wire in a separate step and follow the procedure described above of inserting the terminal into the housing after crimping. In such situations, the terminals are partially inserted into the housing so that the contact portion of the terminal is contained within the cavity in the housing and the crimp portion of the terminals lies outside of the housing. Stop members or retaining members are provided for preventing the contacts from backing out of the housing, the retaining member being such that the terminal can be moved to its fully inserted condition after crimping, as is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,214,361. Another method of securing the terminal within the housing is to have the terminal received in an interference fit between side walls of the housing. The housings with the partially inserted terminals are produced as a continuous strip which can be fed through a crimping apparatus thereby permiting rapid application of the terminal to a wire by the final user and subsequently fully inserting the terminal into the housing.
It would be desirable to provide a retaining feature to prevent the terminal from being fully inserted into the housing before the terminal is crimped onto a wire.